This present invention relates to injection molding systems. More specifically, it relates to a method and apparatus for an automated injection molding configuring and manufacturing systems.
In many manufacturing businesses the time from the initial customer contact to the release of components or systems for production is a critical path. Current processes and tools in place in many manufacturing processes, in particular, injection molding processes cannot support the order volume desired by the manufacturers.
Injection molding is a process by which some malleable material is forced under pressure into a closed mold. The material solidifies and retains the shape of the mold. Thermoplastic materials, thermosetting materials and some ceramic materials can be processed in this way. In a typical injection molding process, a material is melted and injected into a mold that has been clamped shut. The material freezes in the relatively colder mold and is then ejected.
At the beginning of the molding cycle, the molten material is injected into the mold through a sprue bushing, runner, and gate. During injection, the molten material (the xe2x80x9cmeltxe2x80x9d) is subject to a cooling effect by contact with the relatively lower temperature surface of the mold, but is also subject to a heating effect due to viscous dissipation in the melt. If the cooling effect is greater than the heating effect, the plastic may solidify before the mold is filled, resulting in an unfilled mold, i.e. a xe2x80x9cshort shotxe2x80x9d. If the heating effect dominates, the molding cycle may be unnecessarily extended for added cooling time. Because of the high volume rates of operation, even small gains or losses of time can be significant. The melt temperature and injection rate must be chosen so that neither of these problems occurs.
At the end of the injection period, the flow in the mold stops, the pressure rises rapidly, and the material begins to cool. As the material cools it shrinks slightly and more material may be forced into the cavity to the hold pressure acting on the melt. This portion of the molding cycle is called the xe2x80x9choldxe2x80x9d or the xe2x80x9cpacking stagexe2x80x9d, and it continues until the hold pressure is released or until the gate freezes. After the gate has frozen, the material in the mold continues to cool, which at first causes a reduction in pressure, followed by shrinkage of the material in the cavity. When the molded part has cooled sufficiently to remain rigid, the mold may be opened and pins eject the molded part, runner, and sprue from the mold.
Over the last decade, the techniques for designing, building, and ordering injection molding processes have been improved to increase productivity. There are systems in place that support electronic versions of catalogs of injection molding components such as, those offered by Mold Masters Limited, the assignee of this invention, Hasco Yudo, Dynisco, Heatlock, Mastip and the National Tool and Manufacturing Co. Further, interactive systems for selection of components from standard component lists such as Eurotool offered by Navigator are known in the art. There are systems also in place that support automatic drawing generation of injection molding systems. Further, there are systems available that integrate a computerized business system with a computerized manufacturing system.
However, even with recent improvements, the current injection molding systems have several drawbacks. Specifically, problem areas include the inadequacy of specification and order systems. For example, such systems are typically confined to only limited off-the-shelf components and information. Further, some systems presently allow the user to specify and order injection molding systems, such as hot runner systems, even though the person ordering has insufficient knowledge or experience to specify the product design. The resulting product may not function or may even result in a safety concern. In addition, current systems still require manual human intervention downstream by the manufacturer""s personnel such as, for example, by the engineers. Further, typically the current manufacturing systems include the manual generation of the manufacturing information, such as the tooling information.
Accordingly, it is desirable to automate and integrate the design, specification, configuration and order systems with the business and manufacturing systems to enable a real-time automated configuring and manufacturing system which overcomes the problems associated with the prior art.
The method and apparatus of the present invention includes an automated injection molding configuring and manufacturing system. A configuring subsystem in accordance with the present invention, enables customers to interactively create designs of their specific systems utilizing a web site.
In accordance with a preferred embodiment, the method of the present invention includes, configuring an injection molding system using a mix of customer determined parameters and manufacturer determined parameters. Further, the method includes using an input into the configuring subsystem for the generation of: (i) customer viewable models and drawings, (ii) engineering bill of materials, which may be subsequent input into a business subsystem, (iii) manufacturing drawings, and (iv) the machine tool codes, setups, and required tool lists. In a particular embodiment, the method of the present invention includes a processing subsystem that creates product drawings from the configured design. Further, the method includes verifying the configured design to ensure that the injection molding system specified is functional and safe.
In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, an automated injection molding configuring and manufacturing system includes a configuring subsystem for designing a custom designed injection molding system using a mix of customer defined parameters and manufacturer defined parameters. The system further includes a business subsystem and/or a processing subsystem in communication with the configuring subsystem.